So you guys.. I didn't mean for this story to continue on for like.. a century plus infinity times forever. I didn't. Honest! And I would like to finish it. I mean, I would frickin LOVE to finish this story, which is what I'm going to attempt to do here, TODAY.. but yours truly is so damn busy all of a sudden that it really is hard to find the time for my blogging obligations.
I don't mean to make excuses, but seriously, cute men might come before you. I hate to say it, but I just can't lie about it and seriously you would not believe my options have exponentially increased. I mean, I'm no mathematician, but zero + anything is exponential, right? Something like that. Either way, it sort of rocks.
Why is it always feast or famine tho? Can someone tell me? Is there a season the Cute Boy Gate is opened? And who's in charge of that? Can I write a letter? Send an email? Is there a schedule? Because wow.. I'm not complaining, but it's almost difficult to choose at this time, which is exactly why I'm not because hi.. I'm not that stupid.
There is also this producing gig I'm doing for the theatre company, Unicycle, that I'm part of. You guys.. I'm a producer! I'm
the producer! That title doesn't suck, does it? No. No it does not. But it means I have Official Work To Do and Vast Responsibilities for the show coming up in November that include but aren't limited to arranging all the people, making sure all their information is correct, I have ushers and food for the after party and programs and press releases to um.. release and God I hope I don't suck at this cuz it would be not so good for me and my friends would have to remove my producer crown and I sort of maybe super-glued it on so that would be painful. So wish me luck!
********************
The Burning Man Extravaganza Finished Once And For All - No Really, This Time It's Going To Happen I Swear!
After all the excitement of the dirty dirty storm, we were pretty starved and came up with a great idea to join forces and supplies with our neighboring camps and created a nice little Mexican feast together. Kat, being exhausted from her social schedule that kept her out til past dawn most days, crashed immediately afterwards until right when I was about to leave for the evening. She was still so tired she could barely communicate so I told her to sleep and I'd walkie her later about the events going on.
Out on the playa, the population had grown immensely. You could feel the energy of everyone's communal excitement and anticipation for the burn on Saturday. But since it was the start of the weekend, there were various other things going on involving plenty of fire. I discovered an Inca-like temple earlier on in the week and when I rode by it Friday night, there was a smaller burn ceremony happening there. I was actually on my way over to Crude Awakening, the oil derrick and its statues, as it was supposed to be burned that night too, but while leaving the burn of this Incan temple, this random boy said he'd heard they weren't doing it that night and instead were going to do it on Saturday after they burned the Man. Then he gave me a little green stained glass dragonfly ornament. Odd exchange.. and yet welcomed.
Having to always find out things for myself, I headed out to the oil derrick and sure enough, I heard people saying what I'd already been told and the lights were out that had lit up the installation so you couldn't see it anyway. Disappointed, I walkied Kat to tell her not to rush now, but she was already fast asleep - poor exhausted thing - so on my own I went in search of other entertainment.
I killed a couple of hours just taking in the sites, dancing at different places and finally ended at Opulent Temple around 2:00 on the Esplanade where I'd heard Paul Oakenfold, a well-known trance dj, was going to be spinning at 11pm. Tho it was a little early, I thought I'd find a little spot to groove where I could see the action and planted my wiggly self on the middle platform right in front. Pixie found me and for a while cut a few rugs with me, but then mosied on to find other distractions. I chatted up the two girls next to me from Toronto and we busied ourself bordering our places on the platform and keeping it to ourselves. We had a great location.
Because people kept coming and going out of the dj booth, I asked the boy dancing next to me if he knew if one of them was Paul Oakenfold and he said no, but he'd point him out to me when he came on. Boy and I kept chatting it up, just friendly, but I had to eye him after a bit because he had on these fabulous american flag/Uncle Sam pants that you couldn't not notice. Then I maybe
really checked him out. Thick, blonde hair, sorta wavy, great smile, nice guy.. sort of looked like Fred from Scooby Doo actually. And I thought.. can't be gay. And also.. hi.. CUTE!
So we danced for hours, chatted more, went back to his RV (which hellooo, an RV! Not a tent! This was extravagance!) right next to the club because he was part of the Opulent Temple camp, met some of his friends who were all really cool and also, headed out on their own site-seeing/dancing missions, and then we found ourselves alone in the RV, got a little more comfortable and got to know each other a little better. Ahem. Boy was a corporate securities lawyer in San Francisco. Of course! Successful
and cute? Has to live out of town. He couldn't have been sweeter tho. Very cool guy.
The next morning - YES, we're now at Saturday! Whoo hoo! - once it started to get hot, someone got up and turned on the AIR CONDITIONING! Dear God, it was genius! Through groggy eyes a light went on in my head and I thought.. next year, the RV is the way to go. And I went back to cuddling with my blonde attorney.
We slept later than I had all week and his friends couldn't stop talking about the doughnuts they were going to make and how I had to stay for them. People.. doughnuts! Homemade! Dipped in cinnamon, sugar and cocoa. That's what I had for breakfast! It was WAY better than trail mix and apple sauce, I'll tell you that. They were like a little pastry orgasm, they were so good. And while his friend was making that, everyone chatted, got dressed and made plans for the burn later. But time was passing quite fast being around 3pm already so my attorney and I got a move on towards the other side of the playa to get in some dancing.
We headed towards 9:00 and H or I street where The Deep End was going strong, but before we got too far, a margarita bar appeared out of no where like an alcoholic's oasis. We heard the rumbling of a blender - a
blender, people - and we stopped on a dime to take part. We were very quickly handed a cup filled to the brim and then we smelled a barbecue going. It was silly to be shocked by it all again, but the whole idea of a motorcycle engine powered blender and margaritas in the middle of the frickin desert still had me giggling like a little kid unbelieving this magical adult playground we were in.
Not to be delayed too long from our central goal of the day, we continued on to the main afternoon event at The Deep End. There were a few hundred people there easily, the music was incredibly awesome and I was still taking in all the people-watching there was to do.
Exhibitionists with little on, a staged show that The Deep End put on themselves - one with all guys, another with all girls - and then every so often, someone would come out with a nuclear-sized power washer and spray down the crowd, who acted like parched revelers worshipping their sun god. I kept asking myself where else in the entire world were you going to find something like this? No where.. ever.
Tho The Attorney and I were getting rather cozy while dancing, it was starting to get late. He'd invited me to hang out with him for the big burn so we left The Deep End, stopped by my camp to pick up things and introduced him to Kat and Pixie (who both gave me the he's-way-cute looks and a couple of thumbs up as I mouthed 'lawyer' and 'I so rock, right?' or something to that effect), and then we were off again.
On the way up 7:30, we had to stop mid-way for a pre-burn drink at the Abstinithe Camp (Get it? You get it, right? Ok.. fyi, it took me like
three trips riding by this place to get it.. I kept thinking, man they misspelled that.. Yes, I know, Mensa really missed the boat on me, right?) and I'd never had absinthe before. And I found out why. Ew. Wow. Strong. But they had over 50, that's FIFTY, kinds of infused absinthe. They burned the sugar into it and everything - and man it was still yucky, but they gave us real glasses and a strong pour and we sat down, talked to some lovely people, and drank away while munching on fresh slices of watermelon.
We were definitely feeling.. something, what I didn't really know as I didn't know what to expect, but then, back at the RV, half of a 'chocolate' heart found its way accidentally into my hands and I was told to eat it.. so um.. I did. And The Attorney
took ate his half as well. It was all very
hallucinogenic romantic.
We were a tad late getting to the burn, but it didn't matter. The ceremony had started but it was just the collective group of fire dancers en masse and a few large drum circles. Very Survivor-esque but you know.. better and with 50,000 people. The high level of energy was palpable.
With great fanfare, they lit The Man and the crowd cheered big and loud. Then we stood around for a long time waiting for the damn thing to fall down. I tell you, I was like.. this is it? It was.. well.. kind of boring. And it would've been more so, but I was starting to lose my balance, which was a bit unnerving as I was standing completely still and not moving. The Attorney noticed he was feeling the same way, but we didn't know if it was the absinthe or our bit of digested candy. Either way, the clouds and the moon were doing this fantastic kaleidescope dance and I was fairly enamored with all the lights and booming bass from our Vegas-plus-Mad Max-on-acid surroundings.
We heard the kids next to us gushing over what we eventually figured out was an engagement. A very sweet boy literally pimped out in a pimp-style hat and coat and pierced a couple of different ways had proposed to his girlfriend with a faux-hawk and just as many piercings right when they lit The Man on fire. She was showing off her ring like a any blushing bride-to-be as she relayed the details exactly how they happened to the gay boy who'd overheard and instantly became her new best friend. And it was all rather adorable.
After what literally seemed like an hour of staring at The Man and waiting for him to fall down, he finally did. Hallelujah! It was then time to walk over to the oil derrick because one burn for a Saturday surely wasn't enough. Except The Attorney and I noticed that we were having quite the difficult time walking, but not that we were bothered in the least, in fact, we were grinning from ear to ear and giggling like idiots.. and um.. nothing was really that funny. But everything was very pretty!
Because of what we heard to be an overdose by a girl near the oil derrick, we waited for close to
three hours, along with the rest of the playa, for
something to happen and the natives were getting restless. We were right in front of the border the rangers had set up a good distance away from the structure for safety, but after two hours of being told the ceremony would start 'any minute', we left the crowd in search of a more comfortable place to watch back at the RV. We found ourselves a random couch under a loungy tent probably half a mile or more away from where we were, but with a perfect view.
The fireworks finally started and after a few minutes of that, they lit the fire.. and then what surprised everyone was a gigantic boom no one expected.
Fire rose up about a half mile into the sky forming the biggest mushroom cloud I'd ever witnessed and we felt the heat on our faces even from the distance we'd settled ourselves. We couldn't imagine what it would've felt like had we stayed in our original places.
See it for yourself. There are other videos there too that show it from different perspectives and get in all the fireworks prior to the explosion, but this is the best one showing how expansive and overwhelming it really was.
Afterwards, the playa was busy with the dispersing human traffic heading to other venues. The Attorney and I retired to the RV to be alone and tho we could've stayed up all night as one of my other favorite trance dj's, Christopher Lawrence, was spinning at the Opulent Temple next door, we were both pretty exhausted and fell asleep to the lullaby of heavy bass.
On Sunday morning, I said goodbye to The Attorney's friends and he and I left for my 'home' across the playa except that my tricked-out ride wasn't where I'd left it in front of their RV. It'd been pinched! This was totally frustrating because seriously, the walk back was long, it was frickin hot for just 11am and I was also worried because it wasn't mine. It was Pixie's and she'd mentioned hers was stolen the night before. Oh the tragedy!
We made it half way to Center Camp for something cold to break up the walk in the heat and it was buzzing with the energy of the last day. A barista stood up on the counter and announced a fellow burner's gernerosity of buying all the drinks that $20 could buy for the people behind him as well as reminding the rest of us that this was what Burning Man's purpose was - to go out and make someone's day. Clapping and cheers followed.. and when we got to the front of our line, our drinks had also been paid for by a burner trumping the former $20 gift with his own $100 spot. So tho my bike was stolen, there was still a gift offered. Not a precise replacement, but not a bad start to the day after all.
At my camp, The Attorney wrote down his info, we said our goodbyes and the girls gathered around to hear my stories from the last couple of days since I'd been pretty absent doing my own thing.
Then there was just a collective look between the three of us and we decided we were all probably ready to head home. Pixie needed to stay to see if she could retrieve any or all of the 'borrowed' bikes and had friends to caravan with. Kat and I packed up as much as we could in her little ride, arrived in the line around 4pm and noticed it stretched on for miles. It took about two and a half hours of going no miles an hour, but when we finally hit paved road, we couldn't have been happier.
On the way, we discovered a gas station open all night who, thru a stroke of genius, set up a backyard barbecue for the traveling burners and we ate like the desert survivors we were, crashed at a very cute motel and had the first shower and first solid sleep we'd had in a full week.
During the drive, there was a lot of the-week-in-review talk.. but Kat summed it up best, I thought, when she declared, rather out of no where about the rest of the world we were passing by, "All these people.. they have no idea." And without any explanation, I knew exactly what she meant.
For a girl who hates dirt and camping, I can't wait to go back. I completely understand the signs now that said 'Welcome home' when we first arrived. That's what it feels like and all three of us, with other friends, are already making plans for next year.
Treena is even slated to join us. Maybe some of you out there will as well and if so, please make sure to find our camp and say hello. Cheers!
